Quendrith Johnson

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent

When you see Leonardo "Leo" DiCaprio and Martin "Marty" Scorsese on the Wolf of Wall Street global domination press tour, doing things like a tour of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in bespoke three-piece suits without a trace of irony, you forget how creatively potent this pair really is. How it has shaped characters, Amsterdam (Gangs of New York 2002), Howard Hughes (The Aviator 2004), Billy Costigan (The Departed 2006),  Edward "Teddy" Daniels (Shutter Island 2010) and Jordan in Wolf of Wall Street.

With all due respect to Scorsese's early screen self, Robert DeNiro, the DiCaprio movie DNA has pushed Scorsese, now 72, to a frenzy in film history. Love it or hate it, Wolf of Wall Street may be the truest incarnation of their extreme energy together. No shock the film had an NC-17 rating before they toned it down a bit. 

"First (take) you push it, then you bring it down," Scorsese uses his strange little fluttery hands to show the heights and F-stops on directing actors.

"Actually Robert DeNiro is the one who recommended Leo, I mean, he never does that, recommends someone. He said 'you should look at this kid.' I think I saw part of Gilbert Grape on cable. But then he made Titanic, and I got it."

"The director is a lot like your father,' DiCaprio admitted. "You have to have that level of trust."

"'Freedom' is what you mean," Scorsese later corrects.

DiCaprio turned the tables on him for their latest venture. "But (the Wolf of Wall Street script) it was like, 'here Dad, see what I brought you.'" 

Scorsese concurred, "Leo got all the funding for this... Red Granite, everybody." 

"After the 2008" collapse, Leonardo DiCaprio wanted to do something "on corruption," "greed," something extreme. 

The various film critic heart attacks over whether to see this picture as a paean to Gordon Gekko rebooted or a cautionary tale told on Quaaludes at 35,000 ft., is up in the air, shall we say. Ultimately, it will just be seen as the latest installment in the Marty & Leo Show, scaring the hell out of normal.

For The Departed, "I heard Jack Nicholson didn't think I was scared enough of him."

"He's got this picture of rats, all these rats, attacking the White House. He is trying to figure out if I am the rat that I am. So we do the scene. Next day, on the Call Sheet, it just says we are doing that scene at the table again."

Next day, "A guy from Safety comes over, and he says 'I just want you to know Jack has a bottle of whiskey, some matches, and a gun.'"

DiCaprio adds, "the whiskey turned out to be Diet Coke, because we couldn't use real whiskey, so he is throwing these lit matches on the table, but they keep going out. Like he wants to light the whole table on fire, but he can't. Then he lets the gun slip, it falls on the floor, he is fishing around for it under the table."

Scorsese rounds out the anecdote, "Yeah, Jack said he wanted to try a few things. But we couldn't have fire, all that. The gun was enough."

Apparently it worked, and Leonardo's shaken but ballsy performance in The Departed is the only clip DiCaprio watches during the tribute reel for the award. In fact, his chin is actually turned, and he is riveted for a moment.

"Honestly I feel like every film has a different  - for lack of a better word, it is an energy thing," he says of the Scorsese partnership. "This movie (Wolf of Wall Street) was much different than any other movie we have other done. Some films require a lot of debate, investigation. Other films have a looseness to them."

"I like to do lot of takes. More details come out - the way the other actor says something. Maybe it peaks around the 5th or 6th take. Sometime,"  Dicaprio is interrupted in synch when Scorsese chimes in with "around 12 or 13 take," - "it becomes more organic again."

Speaking of his mentor, Scorsese offers "Elia Kazan (On the Waterfront, East of Eden) was a great great theatre director. People forget that. He was a great director until he hit Panic in the Streets (1950), and the camera became a big part of it."

Kazan saw Burl Ives get drunk "that's how he cast him as the Sheriff in East of Eden." 

"He saw him enraged in a bar, and he said 'that it, he's got it in him." Scorsese adds, "You can tell a person is an actor, I mean we all act. But if you can do it and not look at the camera, that's it."

"Tell the story you told me about (Akira) Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune," DiCaprio urges him.

Like a family gathering, Marty holds court with, "Kurosawa told me a story, back in 1989. One of his next to last films called Dreams, he wanted me to play Van Gogh or Van Gock! (laughs). I was up in Hokkadio with him. He worked with man who made Gozilla, they were both 82 best friends."

"Kurosawa told me about Toshiro Mifune, casting him. For I think Drunken Angel, he had an open call for one of these aggressive Johnny Boy types, Mean Streets types of character. He had met all these actors. And then he heard there was some kind of disturbance in the hallway. There was this guy who pushed his way in, he said I don't care what you think, I'm not an actor but I can act better than these actors. Then he threw some chairs around. Kurosawa said 'that's him.'"

You could spent hours listening to them, but Jonah Hill breaks with mood with "when I was 9 years old, I went to see GoodFellas. I know that's a little young. (Scorsese squirms a bit at the age reference). But when I saw Joe Pesci do the clown scene. I wanted to dedicate myself to film. I'd never seen anything so funny, dangerous, and real. Later, I saw What's Eating Gilbert Grape, then I knew I wanted to be an actor. These guy are my two heros. Which is weird, because I am a friend now."

Marty and Leo begin whisper to each other and chuckle in their seats as they see what Jonah is getting at. "I just hope I find somebody like you two have." DiCaprio sips discretely from giant silver goblet, with a guess-what's-in-it vibe, Scorsese leaves his goblet untouched, but flutters his birdlike small hands again. Hard to believe those hands, small and unassuming, have changed the face of cinema. Maybe it is because he waves them so rhythmically and relentlessly, like a conductor of some unseen human symphony.

Undaunted by the sincere awkwardness of the moment, Jonah Hill slogs on: "You know what it's like when you are single, don't have a girlfriend, boyfriend, wife or husband, and you go out with a couple? I'd like to find somebody, like you guys have."

Creatively, he means, but the audience has already begun to titter, and Jonah Hill is just being Jonah Hill.

Nothing can get between a director and his persona as the Marty & Leo show rolls on to the after party.

With the Wolf of Wall Street at their heels. And Jonah Hill backtracking as only a comedic actor can, obsessively.

Tomorrow night the honoree is Robert Redford, another big get at this star-studded 29th Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

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